The chemistry behind humidity • Earth.com

The chemistry behind humidity

12-02-2018


Today’s Video of the Day from the American Chemical Society series Reactions breaks down the chemistry of humidity into terms that we can understand.

Humidity is a measure of how much water is in the air, but the amount of water that the air is able to dissolve changes at different temperatures.

When the air is completely saturated with water, humidity hits 100 percent. At this point, sweat from our bodies has literally nowhere to go and cannot release any thermal energy to help cool us off.

The heat index can be used to determine how hot it actually feels outside, while the dew point can be used to predict how muggy it feels.

By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer

Video Credit: American Chemical Society

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